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How do I use Conversations?

Conversations is split into two panels and displays messages chronologically. You can view and reply to conversations and sort them by course or inbox type. Conversations itself does not have any file size limits; however, attachments added to a conversation are included in the sender's personal files.

Notes:

If you right-click or option-click on the Inbox link, you can open your Conversation Inbox in a new browser tab to keep it handy while you are doing other tasks in Canvas.

Users display in Conversations once they have an active enrollment in the course, and users cannot join unless the course is published.

Open Inbox

In Global Navigation, click the Inbox link.

If the inbox link includes a numbered indicator, the indicator shows how many unread Conversations messages you have in your Inbox. Once you read the new messages, the indicator will disappear.

View Toolbar

The toolbar includes global message options. To load conversations, filter your conversations messages by course [1] and type [2]. Filtering by type lets you filter messages by Inbox conversations, Unread, Starred, Sent, Archived, and Submission Comments. You can compose a message at any time using the compose icon [3].

You can also search for conversations by user in the Search by user field [4].

View Conversation Panels

Conversations for your selected course and Inbox filter appear in the left Conversations panel.

View Conversations

The Conversation Inbox is organized chronologically from newest to oldest with the newest Conversations appearing on top [1] and the older Conversations at the bottom.

You can manually mark a conversation as read or unread by hovering over the conversation and toggling the circle to the left of the conversation [2]. To star a conversation, hover over the conversation and toggle the star to the left of the conversation [3].

View Conversation Thread

Manage Conversation Thread

Within each conversation, you can reply, reply-all, forward, or delete the entire conversation thread [1]. You can also hover over an individual message and use the same commands within the individual message [2].

Select Multiple Conversations

To select multiple messages to archive [1], delete [2], mark as read or unread [3], or star [4], press the command key (Mac) or the control key (Windows) while clicking each message you want to select.

Note: You can also use the same key command to deselect a message.

To select all messages, click the command + A keys (Mac) or the control + A keys (Windows).

To select a range of messages, click the first message you want to select, hold down the Shift key, and then click the last message you want to select. All messages between the first and the last messages will be selected.